40K: The Great 2019 Codex Census
I’ve done some number crunching on every codex in the game and the results are surprising.
Warhammer 40K is an interesting game. It is quite old by modern miniatures game standards (32 years old, and 8 editions), but is also is ever changing with additions and a roiling meta that rarely stays static for over a month.
With that in mind I wanted to dive into the codexes and see exactly what we can glean from a stats breakdown.
The Census Rules
Here are some groundrules:
- The Census Timestamp is July 2019
- Codexes only (no indexes, or Forge World, or units added a la carte that are not yet in the codex proper)
- Age is dependent on when the army was first introduced into the game with a full armylist
- Within each edition, we are ordering the factions from most units to least by their CURRENT 8th Edition codex count.
Thus we can see things like Harlequins and Genestealer Cults not as new armies to the game, but as rather ancient forces that just went a looooooooooooogn time between codex updates.
The 2019 Stats:
We are listing Units in the current codex, and the Edition the faction first received an armylist in the game.
Space Marines – 85 Units, 1st Edition (Warhammer 40,000 Compendium)
Eldar Craftworlds – 56 Units, 1st Edition (Warhammer 40,000 Compilation)
Astra Militarum (Imperial Guard) – 55 Units, 1st Edition (Warhammer 40,000 Compendium)
Chaos Space Marines – 53 Units, 1st Edition (Realm of Chaos)
Orks – 47 Units, 1st Edition (WAAARGH, Orks)
Eldar Harlequins – 9 Units, 1st Edition (Warhammer 40,000 Compendium)
Genestealer Cult – 28 Units, 1st Edition (Warhammer 40,000 Compilation)
Squats – 0 Units, 1st Edition (Warhammer 40,000 Compendium)
Blood Angels – 77 Units, 2nd Edition (Codex)
Dark Angels – 77 Units, 2nd Edition (Codex)
Space Wolves – 77 Units, 2nd Edition (Codex)
Chaos Daemons – 50 Units, 2nd Edition (Codex)
Tyranids – 40 Units, 2nd Edition (Codex)
Adepta Sororitas – 22 Units, 2nd Edition (Codex)
T’au Empire – 38 Units, 3rd Edition (Codex)
Necrons – 36 Units, 3rd Edition (Codex)
Drukhari – 30 Units, 3rd Edition (Codex)
Grey Knights – 32 Units, 5th Edition (Codex)*
Imperial Knights – 12 Units, 6th Edition (Codex)
Death Watch – 32 Units, 7th Edition (Codex)
Thousand Sons – 26 Units, 7th Edition (Traitor Legions Codex)*
Adeptus Mechanicus – 22 Units, 7th Edition (Codex)
Death Guard – 33 Units, 8nd Edition (Codex)*
Adeptus Custodes – 12 Units, 8nd Edition (Codex)
Chaos Knights – 5 Units, 8th Edition (Codex)
Things We Can Learn
I bet you didn’t know so many of the game’s big factions had standalone armylists way back in Rogue Trader. Things like the Space Marines have been leading the parade for decades, but the Eldar Craftworlds, and fringe factions like Harlequins and Genestealer Cult are also quite venerable.
In 2nd Edition, GW formalized the standalone codex series for both 40K and Warhammer Fantasy. Before then, armies got their armylists in compilation books containing several at once. 2nd Edition saw the game expand again – mostly on the Imperial side and was the birthplace of all the “different colored” marines that have been with us ever since.
The game’s first 2 editions, from 1987-1997 saw the introduction of over half of the current factions (14). The remaining 11 factions have been added over the next 22 years.
4th-6th edition (2004-2014) was a dry spell with very few factions being added to the game.
The Squats are the only major faction with a unique range that was removed from the game.
Apparently there is some weird unspoken rule that Space Wolves, Dark Angels, and Blood Angel must have the IDENTICAL unitcount – even though they all have different characters and unique units. 77???
As a general rule older factions have more units, but there are exceptions. The Imperial Marines are unusually large forces as they all share the same pool of models over 3 decades. However some recent forces like 8th Edition’s Death Guard are quite large for thier age, while some ancient ones like Harlequins actually have fewer units now than they did when they were initially released.
A unit-count in the 30s seems to be the sweetspot for a “mature” middle aged codex. Look at the now 20 years old factions of Tau, Necrons and Drukhari, all hailing from 3rd Edition and all with 30-something units. Players would not consider these armies to be lacking in the number of units department and all can be fielded as a potent force.
The armies with over 50 units are almost all marines, and don’t really prosper for their choices. Many of these forces are underpowered in 8th edition and have large swaths of units that are rarely if ever used on the tabletop.
On the other end of the scale, most very recent amries have small modelcounts of a dozen or less, but many of these punch above their weight with multiple potent units that are widely used. Examples include both flavors of Knights and Custodes.
*A case can be made that these three factions (GK, TS, DG) are 1st Edition ones with army lists from the Realm of Chaos books. They however came back into the game much later with rather different concepts and organizations. If you want to consider them 1st Edition lists, it further exaggerates the emphasis on most factions in the game being created during its first 10 years, with only 8 NEW factions added in the last 22 years. This interpretation also means the loss of World Eaters and Emperor’s Children factions (who had RoC armylists) along with the Squats.
Notable Factions
Space Marines – The largest unitcount and very old – granting them the reputation as the poster boys of the game.
Squats – Gone with their unique and distinctive range, but maybe not quite forgotten.
Death Guard – They recieved the biggest, most complete set of units for a codex so young.
Sororitas – Chronically underpowered army with a small unit count – especially for it’s age.
Craftworld Eldar – The largest, most effective, and oldest Xenos foil to the Imperium in the game.
Knights – The most bang for the buck for shaking up the game, considering their young age and small number of units.
~What did you find surprising about the 2019 Codex Census?
